


The Cold, Dark Sea

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 12:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1744853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Maglor and Maedhros never gained back the Silmarils, but were caught in the destruction of Beleriand?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cold, Dark Sea

_Where is Nelyo?_

That was what he would have thought at least, if he had been thinking anything at all. As it was, his mind was spinning, caught up in the dark whirling waters. The water was cold, deathly cold and shockingly, terrifyingly heavy, undeniable. He tried to kick, to paddle weakly with his arms, but his lungs were screaming, bursting, pain shooting through his body _… my voice is trapped in there_ , Maglor thought desperately, irrationally,  _trapped in my chest. My voice… that was all I had, all I will ever have… and now it’s trapped and it will die before I do._ The notion filled him with wild panic and he had to grit his teeth to resist the urge to let out a scream as the fear rose within him, enveloping him as surely as the water that locked him in a cage of ice, pressing down upon his chest. Crushing the breath out of him. 

Where was his brother?

They had been clinging together when the wave had hit, running, stumbling across the land… pits of fire had been everywhere, and behind them the water, falling into the fiery chasms and sending up great gouts of steam that would have stripped flesh from bone… but the brothers, by some miracle, had managed to avoid them, running blindly and clinging to each other, all thoughts of their Oath driven suddenly from their minds as they ran headlong, ran for their lives.

They had been hand in hand when the water engulfed them too, a crushing impact in the back. A whole section of the ground seemed to slough away beneath their feet with a horrible wet sucking sound, leaving them to fall down, down into a dark whirlpool like something from a nightmare, something that had had no bottom… he had screamed, he supposed, gulping air and water both, his throat burning, although the sound he had made was lost, a tiny pathetic sound amidst the roaring of the waters.  _The ground was gone, where had the ground gone, oh Eru help us, where is Nelyo, Nelyo Nelyo hold my hand, don’t let me lose my grip on your hand…_  

He had lost his grip on his brother’s hand. The last he remembered was seeing Maedhros’ silver eyes, (his Nelyo of old, his bright, wonderful big brother) full of fear, but not for himself… his brother’s eyes seemed to say,  _yes, this is what was always going to happen to me. But you, my little brother, my Macalaurë, this is not for you, you are not to drown…_

Maglor had clung to his fingers tightly, as if he were a child again, waking from a nightmare… but no, not this time. They would have clung together with both hands as they once had, but Maedhros had only one now, of course. Nevertheless he gripped Maglor’s hand fiercely, their fingers twisting together, crushing each other in their grip, and Maglor hung on to Maedhros’s sleeve with his other hand, as hard as he could, harder than he knew he could.

The water had pulled them apart. At first it had knocked the breath from Maglor’s lungs, the shock of the water’s impact turning his world black for a moment, then white, and then he was breaking the surface again, trying to swim, disorientated and coughing gouts of water from his lungs. Every breath he drew seemed to be a mixture of air and water and it felt as though a giant fist were punching him in the chest. He realised dimly, as he sucked in a laboured breath, that Maedhros was below him, still under the water, and he tried to drag him to the surface desperately… but Maedhros was kicking, trying to swim in the roiling water, but in the wrong direction, dragging Maglor  _down_ …

Suddenly a piece of debris, a huge clod of earth and rocks barrelled into them both. There were tree branches too, great oaken boughs thick enough to bear the weight of several people, but borne up on the torrent as though they weighed no more than autumn leaves.  _Perhaps all the land was drowned. Perhaps all the world was drowned._

Suddenly he was under the water again, the current too fast to swim against, and nowhere to swim to, save up and out, and of that there was little hope against the roaring waves, where before there had been scorched ground, but ground nonetheless. Maglor’s head went under the water again, the cold shocking him, causing him to gasp breaths, to inhale more water than air. “Nelyo!” he shouted, or tried to, but it came out as a pained squeak as his brother came up for air, gasping…

But then the world seemed to tip sideways as an immense wave loomed over them. Maglor didn’t see it at first; it was behind him as he bobbed on the water, somehow managing to stay afloat. All he saw were Maedhros’ eyes widen, and his brother open his mouth to cry out a warning, and all he had time to do was to begin to take a breath, before the cold glassy blackness was crashing over him, splintering his world into cold and roiling water and shattered images in the space of two heartbeats. It lifted Maglor up and turned him over and over, tossing him as carelessly as a child with a rag doll. His hand was violently torn from Maedhros’, and he tried to cry out instinctively, before remembering that he was under water, and bursting into coughs, his eyes, nose and throat already burning.  _Salt water_ , he realised, somewhere in the back of his panic-glazed mind.  _The sea. Even the sea itself has come ashore to take revenge, and damn us to the darkness._

He carried on kicking, flailing his arms in the turbulent water, but it was so dark now, he was being sucked down by the whirlpool, it was no good, he was not strong enough… his clothes and armour were heavy, dragging him into the black depths that were crushing his chest, his lungs, and swimming felt useless. It would not make the pain stop, could not make it stop. His lungs felt ready to burst and his vision was all water, blurred and painful, when he opened his eyes a crack to see where the light was coming from, to try to turn himself the right way up at the very least.

Swimming was difficult, immeasurably difficult, and the water seemed to slip between his fingers when he tried to paddle, growing weaker by the second as his lungs protested. His mind was starved of air, strange black spots floating past his vision amidst that other black, the black of the cold water. Everything was dark, black on black, he had not even known there were so many shades of black…  _the everlasting darkness. We have failed._ The thought seized him just as his mouth opened in a silent scream, letting the water in… it rushed into his mouth and nose, bubbling down his throat, cold, so cold… the blackness roared in his ears.  _Nelyo. Oh Nelyo, where are you, where…_

The darkness slipped over his head like a hood; all went silent.

—————-

It was a different sort of cold, a cold that bit not into his body but into his very  _fëa._  It was, he realised, precisely because he did not have a body. The thought came easily, and he was oddly calm as the implications of it washed over him. This cold was grey, indistinct, where before the cold had been violent and crushing, crushing his body to pieces under its weight as he sank into the dark depths.

He tried to speak, but of course no sound came. He panicked a little then; trying to cut through the greyness that filled his mind, clouding his thoughts.  _Sound… no sound… there is no sound here…_

But there was a sound. A voice; it almost startled him, if that even had any meaning here. From out of the greyness he could make out the outline of a tall figure, with no face, a silhouette with no distinguishing features. Only that voice, flat and smooth and dry grey as dust, a jarring contrast after all that water.

“Kanafinwë Macalaurë. We have been expecting you for quite some time.”


End file.
